66
THE HOUSING QUESTION
Mr. Trevelyan Thomson “ The Minister, in a reply to me
last Thursday, said :
“ ' . . . In view of the large programme of housing still to
be completed ’—that is, the 176,000 houses—' and the continued
reduction in prices, I hope that further State intervention in any
form will not be required, and that the building industry will
return to its pre-war economic basis.’ . . ."
Viscountess Astor : “... It must be confessed that,
nationally, private enterprise has failed and failed lamentably
in the matter of housing. ..."
Sir Alfred Mond : "... I am convinced that with a little
management and patience we can induce private enterprise to
come in again. . .
Lt.-Col. Fremantle (Coalition Conservative Member and
Chairman of Housing Committee, L.C.C.) : "... So far as
the Minister of Health makes any case, it is that, looking at the
problem as a whole, we depended before the war on private
enterprise to the extent of 95 per cent., and that we should get
back to that as soon as we can. During my period on the Housing
Committee of the London County Council I have been challenging
those who advocate private enterprise to give us their scheme.
They keep on saying that the Government is killing private
enterprise in housing. I say it is not the Government which is
killing private enterprise now, because private enterprise has not
done any of this kind of work for 20 years, and would not do it
at the present time even if the Government were not in
business. . . ."
Sir Alfred Mono : "... If you say it is also your duty to
provide all the houses that did not exist before the war at the
expense of the taxpayer and Treasury, when before the war
any such housing schemes were done at the expense of the rate
payer and the local authority, it is a fundamentally new axiom
that one person is to own the houses and the other person is to
pay for them ; one person to build and another to finance. . .
This extract is significant as shewing what the present
Minister of Health really thinks of any old-fashioned
